


Crown and Shield

by BlackHolesandUnicorns



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: !RATED FOR LATER THERE IS NO FUCKING YET!, Azure Moon Route, Getting Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Reconciliations, Sexual Tension, Slow For Me Anyway!, slowish burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 02:40:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21486967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackHolesandUnicorns/pseuds/BlackHolesandUnicorns
Summary: A coronation, a complication, a realization, and a whole lot of interruptions.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 8
Kudos: 130





	Crown and Shield

**Author's Note:**

> this started out as something quick and cute I could write for me and my wife's anniversary. wow it was not! a cute idea about dimitri and felix getting cockblocked has become this sprawling epic of love and redemption and healing where also they get cockblocked. will be either four or five parts, enjoy.

The entire population of Faerghus had gathered outside of the Fhirdiad royal palace.

Or so it firmly seemed. Dimitri recalled with a sharp, almost painful clarity the way the crowd had sounded from the balcony on the day he had reclaimed the capital from Cornelia’s clutches. He recalled the roar of them, their eager calls for his presence practically deafening. When he had drawn as close to the edge as he had allowed himself, the roiling body of them had seemed near infinite, stretching out as far as he could see, each individual vanishing into the great tide of them. It had been beyond belief, beyond _understanding_, that so many might have come to see him, of all people. The prince who had abandoned them. The beast stained with blood. The king they’d never crowned. That so many of them, even to that dark day, had kept faith, kept hope…

It seemed woefully naive, now, that the attendance to _that_ event had impressed him so.

For the coronation of the new king, it was said that every bed in the capital was full, so they slept on pews and in alleys and even on open streets. It was said that there was not enough food to feed them all, that they drank snowmelt and ate hard biscuits. It was said that the streets were so full of people that it was impossible to move about one’s daily business. And it was said, along with all those other things, that the mood of the capital had never been so joyous, nor so energized with anticipation.

And now, they had all gathered to see him.

Dimitri brushed aside the curtain to gaze out, sucking in a sharp breath as the full scope of it hit him again. The same uncertainties and insecurities and fears that had plagued him for months, since he had emerged from the comforting simplicity of his bitter madness, pressed in against him, hard and demanding. Voices whispered at the corners of his consciousness.

_“You will fail them, as you failed me,_” said Glenn.

_“You are not yet a fit successor,”_ said his father.

_“You will never be more than a mad dog_,” said El.

“What are you making that face about?” said Felix, and the undeniable realness of his sharp voice shattered the ghosts and sent them scurrying back into the shadows.

Dimitri turned.

The new Duke Fraldarius stood with a flat expression and arms folded across his chest. He was dressed in the colours of his house, velvet and ermine, finery that looked very much out of place on him. “You look terrified,” he said. “They’re not going to throw tomatoes, you know.”

“You don’t know that for certain,” Dimitri demurred, voice quiet.

Felix barked a laugh. “Well. If they do, they’ll never reach you up here.”

Dimitri could not help the surprised laugh that escaped from his chest. He shook his head. That was the sort of ridiculous and yet simultaneously down to earth counsel he had come to expect.

Felix had insisted upon being here, even as the other vassal lords had acquiesced to take their places in the hall below for the coronation ceremony that would follow his address. When Dimitri had questioned the choice, Felix had taken a certain stubborn countenance, his jaw bulging and his brow pulling down. _My father would have been on the balcony with you_, he said, as if that were all that need be said, and perhaps it was. His father had been present when King Lambert made his coronation address, after all -- and their fathers before them, and theirs before that, all the way back to Loog and Kyphon hundreds of years before. It would perhaps have been a bigger shock were a Fraldarius _not_ with him when he addressed the gathered throng.

But Felix was not _just_ a Fraldarius. And the rift that had yawned so long and so wide between them was only recently knitting itself cautiously back together.

He stepped forward, his fine, polished black boots clicking along the floor before they were muffled by the thick, plush rug Dimitri stood upon. “You’re fretting about nothing, in any case,” he muttered, pushing past him to catch sight of the crowd beyond. Dimitri half-turned to watch him as the rising sun caught his proud, fine profile, limning him in gold. “If they were throwing anything, it’d be flowers.”

He looked beautiful in that light. Of course, he always did, didn’t he?

Dimitri sighed, swallowing and following his gaze. The sound of the throng, the impression of them just out of sight…

His stomach tied into knots. Felix’s faith in him was nearly worse than that of the people. He had only disappointed them once. But Felix? He had ruined his life a dozen times, by now. To let him down again would be unbearable, and the inevitability of it was staggering.

“I wish Professor Byleth were here,” he murmured, because didn’t things always seem more steady in her presence?

Instantly, he felt coldness radiate from the man beside him, icy tension permeating the air between them. Felix shifted from one foot to the other. “Right,” he said. “Well, _Her Grace_ has got enough bullshit in Garreg Mach to worry about that I think we can rule out her getting here today.” He let out a stream of hot air. “And I know I’m a damned poor replacement, but before you fall apart, please try and remember that --”

Dimitri turned abruptly, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Ah, no! No, please, Felix, I misspoke.”

He felt him tense even further beneath his touch. Ah, that had perhaps been a bad idea; he knew Felix resisted physical contact almost as much as he did meeting someone’s eyes. He had acted mostly on instinct.

Sheepishly, he released his hold on his shoulder, shaking his head. “That is -- I mean to say, you are certainly not any sort of replacement. I would have you both here, at my side, is all. She is a very… steadying influence.”

Felix turned abruptly, and Dimitri found himself pinned by his gaze, burning amber. It made his heart leap into a rapid, fluttering gallop, made him weak-kneed and wool-headed.

“And what am I, then? An aggravating one?” he demanded, roughly.

“I -- no, I merely --”

“You were perfectly clear that you didn’t want me here with you to begin with. It would be tolerable, if she could mitigate my unwelcome presence, is that it?” His nostrils flared, and he shook his head, scoffing under his breath. “Why am I even bothering?” he muttered, voice harsh and bitter and something else, something Dimitri could not place.

“I want you here. Of course I do. You have been invaluable these past months. I simply did not want you to feel an obligation.”

Felix snorted, finally breaking their eye contact, looking down at his feet. The light shifted as the sun moved, so that the sun fell on his blue-black bangs, turning them burnished copper. “Of course,” he repeated, and then he seemed to droop all at once, his shoulders wilting and his arms falling to his sides. “Of course,” he said again, and was it a trick of the light, or did colour touch his cheeks?

Silence held between them for a moment. Dimitri did not know what to say, and could not quite break his attention from the fall of Felix’s hair over his face. And Felix simply stood, his chest rising and falling, unmoving.

“But it _is_ an obligation,” he said finally, quietly. “Isn’t it? Blaiddyd and Fraldarius, not you and I.”

Dimitri started, frowning as he replayed the words in his mind. “I -- what?”

Felix shook his head. His hair, still shining, swayed. “I’m the last of the line. Shield to the crown. It can’t be Glenn, and it can’t be my father, and so… that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? As you said -- obligation.”

Dimitri opened his mouth, then closed it. Opened it again. “Is that what you think?”

“Isn’t it the truth?”

“_No!_”

He said it with such force that it seemed to catch Felix’s attention. His head snapped up once again, his hair flowing with the movement, and those amber eyes were wide as he gazed up at him. Wide, and guileless. Almost as much as they had been when he’d been a sweet, affectionate boy.

“No,” Dimitri repeated. “Absolutely not. I -- I want you by my side. I want you here because you are honest, you are loyal, you have never pulled any punches with me in all the time I have known you, and because I cannot imagine doing this without you! You, and no other. And for so long, I thought that I would have to, because of the distance between us.” He swallowed. Felix’s lips had parted, and a tiny little stitch had appeared between his brows. “Have… have I not made that clear?”

His eyes flashed. “Would I be saying all of this if you had?” he demanded sharply. 

And yes -- Dimitri had not imagined it. There was colour in his cheeks, high and blotchy. And between all of it, his colour high and his eyes sharp and his lips full and his hair shining… he just looked so, so very…

His hand moved on its own, fore and middle finger catching a lock of hair between them, brushing it back from his face. It was so soft, so silky beneath his fingers.

Felix moved like a striking snake, catching Dimitri’s wrist with one hand. He snarled, lips flattening and pulling back, brows coming down sharply, eyes flying open even wider than before.

“What are you trying to pull?” he demanded, rough and unsteady.

Dimitri blinked down at him, heart thudding in his chest.

In truth, he did not entirely know.

“I…” He let his tongue out to wet his lips. They seemed so very dry.

Felix’s fingers had caught the skin between his clothes and his sleeve, and the skin to skin contact burned him. His breath did not seem to be able to find its way down to fill his lungs. The lock of hair he had stolen still hung limply between his fingers. They stood like that, frozen in tableau, Felix silent and Dimitri unable to speak.

Finally, he opened his mouth to do so.

“Felix,” he said, and at that moment, the door behind them flew open.

Felix jumped back as if he had been caught doing something forbidden, something awful, and dropped his hands to his side, shuffling his feet along the rug. Dimitri could only watch him, even as footfalls on stone should have called his attention away. His heart raced. His mouth was so dry!

“Your Majesty.” 

Gustave’s patient, imperturbable voice dragged his feet back down to earth, and he turned to see him enter. Dedue followed on his heels, and smiled when he met his gaze. The two of them bowed, Gustave far deeper.

Felix stepped back. Dimitri thought he could hear him breathing heavily… or perhaps it was simply wishful thinking.

He’d have given near anything to know what he was thinking at that moment.

“It’s time, Your Majesty,” Gustave said, straightening. “Your people await.”

“Of course,” Dimitri agreed. Hah. He had nearly forgotten his fears amidst all the rest of it. Wasn’t that something? Of course, with the moment upon him, they all came crashing back, and the presence of the ghosts at his back along with them.

_“You will be alone, forever,” _his mother said. _“Because that is what you deserve. Why do you think I did what I did?”_

He closed his eyes tightly, shutting her out. She was gone. They all were. The living still walked beside him.

“Will you need me at your side, Majesty?” Gustave asked.

Dimitri looked up, blinking his eyes open, and a smile made its way to his lips despite the odds.

“No,” he said. “I will have Felix, after all.”

*

He sat upon the throne as all the lords and ladies of Faerghus made their way into the hall. He sat as the banners were raised high, griffin and Blaiddyd Crest ascendant. He sat as Seteth, as the archbishop’s consort and right hand, placed the crown upon his head and gave the blessing. He sat as each of the lords of the realm came, one after another, Galatea and Dominic and Gautier and Gaspard, to give their fealty, kneeling and saying the vows.

Felix was the last. He merely bowed rather than kneeling, and his vows were simpler than any of the others had been, prompt and perfunctory. No one would dare say a word in protest. Everyone knew he had been sworn as soon as he could memorize the words.

Dimitri watched him, unblinking. His fingers and wrist tingled, as if haunted by the ghost of his touch, the texture of his hair. What had happened, in that brief moment? That thing that had passed between them… that tension, that heat… had he imagined it? And if he hadn't, what did it mean?

Felix had not pushed him aside. Not rejected him. Not cursed him for his impudence. Merely looked at him with those wide eyes.

The ceremony stretched to an interminable length.

When it ended, he was given access to an antechamber where loyal servants had laid out more practical clothing that he could move about in. Still finery, of course, but without the great, sweeping fur cape that weighed his shoulders down, or the drapes of gold and silver chains across his chest. Finally, the heavy crown, resplendent with jewels and gold and the silhouette of the Immaculate One mantling vast wings wrought in silver.

Dimitri studied her, running the pad of one finger over her pointed wingtip. Such a poor imitation of such an awe-inspiring, reality-shifting creature. For a moment, the madness of the time in which he lived, all that had happened, all that was still unfolding to this day, threatened to overtake him.

_“You called me a conqueror,” _Edelgard said, behind him.

He froze, finger still held against the wingtip. If he turned about, he would see her there, he knew. Pierced through by his hand, Aeredbhar’s terrible wound gaping in her flesh. He set his jaw, and did not turn.

“_Are you any better, in the end? You have what I sought, do you not? All of Fodlan beneath your thumb. A world to remake in your image. Do you tell yourself you had no choice? Or can you see the truth? That you merely eliminated a rival when you took my life, as coldly and ruthlessly as all the other lives you destroyed…”_

“El,” he murmured.

She did not respond. Because, of course, she was not there at all.

*

All ceremonial garb had been exchanged for the finery of a celebration, and Dimitri had no sooner exited his antechamber in his own change of clothes than he was swept off by a series of increasingly eager staff to meet the lot of them on the floor of the grand hall.

It sparkled. His gaze swept over the gleaming marble floors, the pillars carved with griffons and lions and wolves, the vaulted ceilings with their colourful frescos. The chandelier, covered in twinkling candles, dominated the vision. When they had come to the palace, after they had lost Rodrigue, after they had ended Cornelia’s despotic regime, they had found this hall a near ruin, the tarnished chandelier and its myriad candles a strange, spiderline wreck in the middle of the dusty and crumbled floor. It had seemed impossible, on that day, that Fhirdiad might ever be the way that it had been before. Seeing it like this…

“_Don’t you think I deserve to see it, too?”_ Rodrigue asked quietly at his shoulder, bitter as he never had been in life, not even in his darkest moments.

Dimitri shook his head faintly. His demons would have to be more convincing, if they wanted to pull him back down. Almost immediately, he regretted the mere thought. They did not need the encouragement.

The gathered guests sparkled as much as the room did, and the living held far more appeal than the dead. Duke Galatea appeared before him mere moments after he stepped out onto the floor, all smiles and ferocious loyalty, as was his wont, and moments later, Dimitri found himself pressed into a dance with Ingrid. Her pale blue gown swept the floor, and it was hard to see the rough-and-tumble student who had feared Mercedes and Annette’s cosmetic bags in how ravishing she looked tonight.

He lead her through the easy steps. They’d practiced this very dance together a dozen or more times, when they’d taken their dancing lessons. Dimitri had been ahead of the curve, eager to share his newly learned wisdom with his friends, and he’d spun them all through the paces. Sylvain had taken to it easiest. Felix had gotten that look on his face, focused and concentrating, slowly improving step by step. Ingrid had been the worst of them all, in fact… but one would never guess that, now.

“He thinks you ought to marry me,” she confided with a small, hidden smile, casting a glance over her shoulder at her father, watching them from the sidelines.

“Oh, does he?”

“Mm-hm,” she agreed. “In reward for House Galatea’s loyalty and my service on the front lines of the war. It’s only the natural step. Or so he keeps telling me.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind,” he said, smiling down at her and trying to keep himself from laughing outright. Duke Galatea had his flaws, but he was a loyal vassal and a dear friend of his father’s. It would hardly do to be seen chortling at his ambitions so openly.

“I’d watch yourself, if I were you,” she counseled him, her mouth close to his ear as they parted at the dance’s end. “Half the lords in this room intend to have you married to their daughters and neices and cousins by spring, and the ones who don’t? Just don’t have anyone in mind.”

He nodded grimly. Oh, he was perfectly aware. With only one living Blaiddyd still walking the earth, and recently returned from the dead, at that, everyone was agitated and eager to find him a mate.

His eyes found Felix, standing at the refreshment table with Sylvain. His back was turned, and Dimitri’s eyes slid up and down his back, eyes lingering in places he knew he oughtn’t. A habit he’d trained himself out of years before.

But Felix hadn’t rebuffed him.

He took one step towards him, already preparing all manner of words and questions and promises and denials, when suddenly Lord Charon was before him, his shy, pretty niece on his arm, and Dimitri was being pressed into another dance. That dance became another, and another, a long line of eligible ladies from across the Kingdom and the Alliance and even a small number of Adrestian ladies. They were all lovely, and kind, and treated him as if he were still the fine prince he had seemed before he had died, before Felix’s boar had taken over. And for his part, briefly, he felt like perhaps he was.

But as the night wore on, their charms wore thin, and his feet ached from dancing. The ghosts pressed in around him, their whispers blending in with and separating out from the buzz of the crowd, the swirl of people all around him. His face ached from smiling, and small talk numbed his brain. His tongue felt heavy.

He found space between dances, when the musicians broke to tune their instruments, and moved to the sidelines. Eyes followed him, to be sure. He could hardly pass unseen, unremarked, unnoted. They’d put his father’s crown upon his head, and he belonged to the people now.

He found his way to Dedue’s side.

His friend stood, solid as a tree trunk on the edges of the floor, looking resplendent in the ceremonial armour Dimitri had pressed upon him as the Captain of the new Royal Guard. He couldn’t help but notice that he had taken up position just outside the doors to the balcony, and had to hide a smile when he considered what had led him to do so. Did he imagine assassins climbing the walls like spiders, swarming into the ballroom? It was a strangely humourous thing to imagine.

“Your Majesty,” his friend murmured as he took his place at this side, inclining his head slightly towards him.

“Dedue,” he breathed, surprised to find relief flooding through him as he spoke the name. It was more liberating than he might have imagined to be speaking to someone he did not have to coach his words in six layers of carefully chosen care for.

“You’re acquitting yourself very well,” Dedue said. What he didn’t say, and yet they both heard, was _you look exhausted._

He smiled up at him. “Ah, well. It’s hardly a task to celebrate such hard won peace.” _The people deserve this. It’s the least I can do to put on my best face._

Dedue nodded sagely, his gaze sweeping the floor. One of the violinists played an experimental chord. The pianist ran through a quick scale. Dimitri winced. The dancing would recommence any moment now, and his brief moment of respite would come to an end.

“The air is a bit stuffy, though, isn’t it?” He made a show of stretching his arms out to the sides, as if trying to pop quick joints, and turned to look at the balcony doors behind them. “Perhaps a brief moment to take in a breath of fresh air?”

_Please don’t let them follow me._

Dedue looked over at him. Nodded slowly. “A brief moment,” he said warningly. 

The second meaning was barely unstated. For as long as they had known one another, Dimitri never had taken well to being alone.

He reached up to brush a hand against his shoulder as he moved toward the balcony doors behind him, pushing aside the pane of glass to move outside. Perhaps Dedue’s concern was right, and the moment of solitude would make things worse, and not better. But that first breath of fresh, cool air was sweeter than water from a mountain spring.

He closed the doors gently behind him, a clear disinvitation to any but the most determined of attention. The music, rising in those first chords of a lively quadrille, faded the moment the latch clicked shut, and the buzz of conversation and laughter vanished entirely. He closed his eyes, and breathed a sigh of relief.

A familiar voice raised in a bitter little laugh behind him.

He whirled, surprised to see Felix standing at the balcony, balancing a rather overfull glass of wine on the marble railing. “Felix,” he gasped. “What are you doing out here?”

Felix shook his head, turning about and leaning back against the rail. As he did, Dimitri spied another glass there -- and then another, and another. All empty. “Strange sort of question, coming from you,” he said, raising a hand to gesture vaguely in his direction. “The king in exile! Hiding from your adoring public?”

Dimitri furrowed his brow. His voice was a bit too loud, a bit unsteady. He cocked his head, peering at him. “... did you drink all of those?” he asked.

“No, I poured them over the edge,” Felix deadpanned, and then he twisted about to plant his elbows on the railing. “Of course I did. Naturally. Could barely think straight without them. Your fault, of course.”

“My fault.”

“Yes. Obviously.”

Dimitri twisted about to gaze behind him. Was anyone approaching the door, coming to drag him back into the party? Or did he have a moment to himself -- or, rather, to Felix?

(It occurred to him that Dedue must have known Felix was out here. Had he misinterpreted the warning in his voice, after all?)

But no shapes approached the clouded glass, and after a moment, satisfied that they would be left alone, Dimitri turned away and took a few hesitant steps toward the railing and Felix.

“I’m afraid you’re ahead of me,” he said, trying to keep his tone light even as he replayed that brief moment before his address, analyzing it at all angles and searching for the truth of what had passed between them there. “I’ve only had two glasses, myself. Quite far apart. I regret to admit that I am fully in control of my faculties.”

Felix’s lips twisted. “As much as you ever are,” he muttered.

The words, quiet as they were, stung more than Dimitri would have liked. He tightened his hand over the balcony, fingers practically digging into the stone. It certainly told him how Felix saw him. Hopes and wishes smashed against the rocks so unceremoniously.

“Indeed,” he agreed after a moment. What ought he do, instead? Pretend to be the very picture of sanity to defend his own bruised feelings? After all that had happened?

But Felix’s jaw bulged and he shook his head, sighing. “Unkind of me,” he murmured. “Unfair, even.” He turned his face away, hiding even his profile from Dimitri’s gaze. “You are -- you are what you are. It’s fine. You’re -- fine.”

A host of ghosts at his back all laughed together. _“Did you hear that?”_ Glenn asked, good-humoured like he’d heard a fantastic joke. _“You’re fine! I’m sure you’re glad to hear it._”

“I’ve been worse,” he allowed. And better, though he didn’t want to admit that. The ghosts had been vocal, of late, moreso than they had been since Rodrigue’s death. Dedue reminded him to sleep more often, and to seek out living company when he heard the voices. And, of course, not to listen to them, nor respond to them.

At the very least, he had been vigilant in _that_. They were not real, no matter how he perceived them.

Felix shook his head, stepping back to lean his weight more firmly against his elbows. “I know you have. I -- I said it was unfair, didn’t I? I did. It was unfair. I say things, you know. Don’t watch my tongue. Or, hah. Wield it like a sword. That’s closer to the truth, isn’t it?” He raised a hand to waved him roughly off, face still turned away from him. “You should go away.”

Dimitri lowered his head. “If that’s what you want,” he said softly. What else had he expected, really?

“What I want!” Felix repeated with an exhausted, high-pitched sort of laugh, his shoulders shaking. “What _I_ want! Do you think I know what I want, anymore, boar? _Dimitri?_” He growled and seized the remaining cup of wine, bringing it to his lips.

He spat the name like an insult, but Dimitri could not help the little hitch in his breath to hear it on his tongue. Pathetic, perhaps, but there it was.

“I’m sorry I bothered you,” he said. He reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder, steady him, perhaps comfort him, but he stopped, his fingers hovering over him awkwardly. No. He had best not. He dropped the hand and turned away.

He had made it no more than one step back toward the doors, the music, and the hall before Felix’s sharp voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Why did you do that?” he demanded roughly.

Dimitri paused, unsure of how to answer. He could, after all, mean all manner of things. It was not necessarily the question that he so wanted it to be. “I’m afraid you have me at odds,” he said softly, as the music within ended on a long chord.

“Don’t try and act stupid!” Felix snapped, and Dimitri’s heart skipped a beat.

In the brief and utter silence that followed, the world seemed positively frozen in place.

The musicians struck up another song, a soft waltz, and the tableau cracked with the sound of Felix’s loud, frustrated sigh.

“Look at me,” he commanded. “If you can suffer to!”

Dimitri turned. Felix stood with hands fists at his sides, cheeks flushed red, amber eyes flashing. He stared up at him, staring directly at him, meeting his gaze. An image crashed through his memory -- Felix in a spare set of Glenn’s practice armour, insisting that he be allowed onto the field with the rest of them. His jaw had been set, his little fists tight little balls, and when Glenn and Sylvain had laughed and the weaponsmaster had said he wasn’t old enough to train with the older boys, he’d stuck out his bottom lip, half a threat of tears and half a sort of challenge. _I’m only two months younger than Dima! _he’d cried, _I want to be with Dima!_

Saints, if he didn’t look the very same at that moment, and the ribbon of time seemed to fold and bunch and constrict before snapping back out to its full length.

“You touched my hair,” he accused, and the ferocity of the recrimination combined with the innocence of it was so absurd that Dimitri had to fight back a surprised bark of laughter.

Felix saw it, regardless of his efforts. His brows pulled all the way down, and he took an unsteady, threatening step forward. “Oh, is it funny?” he demanded. “Was this a game, then, Dimitri? _Beast?_ Are you going to play with me, so? We both know how I feel! You -- you don’t have to be, to be cruel! I know, I have always known, and, and you can’t be, you can’t _do_ something like that, not without -- do you understand?”

The last was nearly shouted, and Dimitri glanced nervously behind him, terrified that someone would hear and come running. But the song playing was a raucous jig, and it would seem that Felix’s deranged drunken rambling had not even penetrated the glass.

He shook his head. Did he understand?

“Not even slightly,” he admitted.

Felix laughed. High, and desperate, and wild. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he breathed, shaking his head. He reached up, ran a hand through his hair, and it tumbled back over his forehead with that same tempting drape. “You can’t be serious…”

Dimtiri’s fingers itched to touch him again. He curled his fingers into fists to resist the urge. “You aren’t making very much sense,” he said softly.

“I asked you a question!” Felix demanded, stepping forward once again, and now he practically banged into Dimitri’s chest. He stared up at him, his eyes so sharp and gleaming they were like stars. “Why did you do that? Answer me. Don’t I deserve that much?”

“Of course you do,” Dimitri said, and he swallowed. Ah, Goddess. It had come to this, had it? Well. It had already progressed so far that there was no real harm in honesty, was there?

_“Don’t be so sure,”_ El said, so distant he barely heard her.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I shouldn't have. It's just… something I've wanted to do for a very long time, is all, and the moment… it caught me up." He shook his head, gazing down at him. Would this be it, then? The end of their fragile, newly cemented peace? "I'm sorry," he said again, breathless, already mourning that sweet, fleeting pleasure.

But the look that came upon Felix's face was not one of disgust, or of recrimination, or even of confusion. His lips parted and his eyes pinched at the corners, the anger and accusation and fierce challenge melting away with the colour from his face and leaving him looking merely aghast. 

He raised his hands, dragging them down his face. "You can't be serious," he mumbled into his hands. "This must be some sort of joke."

Dimitri swallowed. He shook his head. He no longer felt as if he had any real grip over what was happening, except to know that he was sorely out of his depth. "No," he said. "I'm sorry. It's not." 

"You're sorry," Felix repeated, still muffled, and a desperate, disbelieving chuckle caught in his throat. He dropped his hands, looking up at him. There were so many emotions on his usually shuttered face that Dimitri did not think that he could accurately identify any of them.

Ah, but in himself… hope. Hope welled up like a geyser.

Carefully, with halting motions, Felix reached upward. His hands grazed the line of Dimitri's jaw, rough against his stubble. His eyes scanned his face, darting across his features, as his fingers traced his jawline, across his cheekbones. One forefinger slid carefully down the line of his nose. 

Dimitri watched his adam’s apple bob. He drew in a shuddering, slow breath of his own. Time folded and folded and folded again until it was the size of a pinpoint, narrowed and contracted to the space between them where their breath mingled together, hot and unsteady in the cold night air.

"Dimitri," Felix whispered. His hands cupped his cheeks.

Dimitri reached shaking hands upwards, covering Felix's with his own. Even through his gloves, he could feel their warmth. “Felix,” he echoed, and all manner of promise seemed to echo in that sound, swirling between them into that void of time.

The doors behind them flew open in a calamity rush of music and laughter and voices.

Felix jumped back, snatching his hands against himself and turning his entire body away. Dimitri watched him, unable to speak or breathe or even blink, until a forceful arm went around his shoulder, hauling him close.

“Your Majesty!” Sylvain cried, all eager, boisterous charm. “Hell, you’re the king for_ real_, now, aren’t you? Unbelievable, eh, Ingrid?”

She moved with considerably more grace to his other side, smiling up at him. “Hardly,” she said, offering him a sparkling crystal flute filled with silver champagne. She had two others in her other hand, held delicately between her fingers. “To me, he’s been the king since Duscur.”

She spoke the words easily -- casually, even. But Dimitri met her eyes as he accepted the champagne flute, and saw the breadth of sincerity in those emerald depths. He smiled. He was not worthy of that --

_“You are not worthy of that,”_ Father echoed, accusing.

\-- but she was the truest and most gallant knight he had ever known, and her loyalty carried a veracity to it that neither ghost nor self-doubt could erase. If nothing else, it made him feel that, at the very least, he had the _potential_ for worthiness.

“Thank you, Ingrid,” he said.

She smiled broadly, and shifted the glasses to that she held one in each hand. The first, she cradled against her chest, and the second, she extended towards the last of their number. “Felix?” she offered.

Sylvain laughed. “You sure about that, Ingrid? He’s been slamming those back all night.”

“Shut up,” Felix muttered, shaking his head and turning about. He avoided all of their eyes, looking down at his feet, and if his cheeks were especially flushed, then -- well. He had been out in the cold the longest, and Sylvain was not wrong. He was quite drunk.

Dimitri swallowed hard. Did that mean anything, that he was intoxicated? Did he know what he was saying, doing? Were the things he wanted the same in this state? His skin burned where he had touched him.

Felix squared his shoulders and raised his chin, meeting each of their gazes almost defiantly. He extended a hand to Ingrid. “What’s this, then?” he asked. His voice was a bit hoarse. “A toast?”

“Naturally,” Sylvain said as Ingrid handed Felix the flute. He lifted his own, peering into its golden, bubbly depths. “I’ve been waiting all night for the opportunity, too. A chance for the four of us to get a second.”

“I hope you don’t mind that we didn’t invite Annette, or Ashe, or…” Ingrid shot a look over her shoulder back at the door. Dedue’s name hung between them, and it was true that Dimitri could not help but think of all the years when his oldest friends could not accept his newest one.

Ingrid must have seen as much in his gaze. She shook her head. “It’s not a slight! It’s just --”

“We get it,” Felix said sharply.

“I do,” Dimitri agreed, and he did. Only…

Felix shook his head. “There’s a fifth missing,” he said sharply. And though surely they were all thinking the same, they all flinched as one, as if he’d jabbed an empty socket where Glenn had once been. “Bring the hound out here,” he said, and his jaw tightened as he raised his eyes to Dimitri’s face. “The rest of them, sure. School friends. But Dedue has been here since Duscur, one way or the other. And he’s important to Dimitri.”

“He’s important to all of us,” Ingrid hurried to say, unfairly defensive.

“You know what I mean,” Felix said, and dropped his eyes. He shrugged. “Or don’t call him out. I don’t care. This is sentimental tripe.”

Felix had disliked Dedue more than any of them, at first, and most openly, and for the longest. Dimitri watched him curiously as Ingrid bowed her head and turned, heading back inside.

“Thank you,” he finally said, quietly.

“Fuck off,” Felix replied.

Sylvain threw back his head and laughed.

Moments later, Dedue joined them on the balcony. They had gathered something of an audience, as well, to Dimitri’s chagrin, dignitaries and ambassadors and lords and ladies and honoured guests chosen from the commons all gathered around the door, peering out in hopes to catch a glimpse of this candid moment. He sighed. The thought of a truly private moment with his oldest and best friends had been tantalizing. He ought to have known better, of course. He was not his own man, not anymore, if he ever had been.

The thought brought his eyes back to Felix, who steadfastly did not look at him.

Sylvain raised his flute. “To Faerghus, then, and her new King.” He sounded uncharacteristically serious.

“To the past, and to all we’ve left behind,” Ingrid said, and while her smile was sad, it was soft and not unhappy.

“...to the future, then,” Dedue said, clearly uncomfortable at his inclusion. He bowed his head.

All eyes turned to Felix. He rolled his eyes and scoffed, but then looked down at his glass as if searching it for some insight. He shrugged one shoulder. “To Dimitri, I suppose,” he said, barely loud enough to hear. “

“To Dimitri!” The others all echoed, and they drank.

And, of course, that was it. The opportunity for privacy had passed, and the lot of them were swept back into the grand hall together by celebratory onlookers, ecstatic to have witnessed what may very well be distorted into some folk song, years from now. The music played long into the night, Dimitri had a thousand worthy partners with whom to dance, and when he had a moment to scan the hall looking for Felix, he was nowhere to be found.

**Author's Note:**

> hoping to update once a week we'll see I DO suck so who knows!


End file.
